


Dreamwalker

by Lennelle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Astral Projection, Case Fic, Escape, Gen, Psychic Abilities, Season/Series 02, Supernatural Reverse Big Bang Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 08:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12883941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lennelle/pseuds/Lennelle
Summary: There's a missing little girl in Louisiana. Sam loses himself trying to find her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Finally! It's here! 
> 
> I cannot tell you how much of a challenge this was, but I'm so happy I finally made it to the finish line (by the skin of my teeth!) This was written for the reverse big bang 2017, and I was lucky enough to get lightthesparks as my artist.
> 
> She's been so patient with me through this, and I'm so grateful for all the gorgeous art she created for this story. Make sure to head over to LJ to give her love!
> 
> Also, thank you eternally to winchesterpooja, who saved my skin by being my emergency beta. I didn't give her much time, so if you do spot any mistakes I guarantee they're mine.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this story!

 Miss Monroe is younger than Dean expected. The bright sign on the door of her apartment promises accurate readings, a chance for whoever has the right amount of cash to catch their future before it knocks them on their ass. Dean doesn't care about his future, doesn't think he's got much of one in his line of work. This isn't about him, anyway. What he cares about is the present.

The door opens on his third knock and Miss Monroe's eyes rake him up and down, mouth pinching at the corners with disdain.

"Don't get many of your kind around here," she says, bitter-mouthed. She perches one hand on her hip, her long silver moon-printed skirt swishes at her ankles. With a sigh, she tucks one loose dread behind her ear, the rest coiled up around her crown like rope. She gives a vague wave of her hand and says, "Come on in then."

The apartment is small, made smaller by the clutter of trinkets that seem to cover every surface. Beads draped on the coat hanger, herbs across the kitchen counter, a cat skull nestled between candles on the TV set. She points one dark, slender finger over to a table at the centre of the room, the bangles on her wrist jangling with the movement.

Dean squeezes in, wedged between a wicker-bound doll with a wooden skull face and a couple of chicken feet.

Miss Monroe takes the vacant seat opposite and gazes at him long and hard. "You're wanting a reading, yes?"

"Yeah, but not for me."

One eyebrow goes up as she says, "A third-party reading? Well, you can guess why that puts me in a compromising position. An ethical tarot reader would never read for someone who ain't given permission. It will be less accurate, besides."

"Not for you," Dean counters. "This person would give their permission if they could, and I hear you're the best there is."

She flusters a little at that, fingertips fiddling with the crystal dangling from her neck. "So, who are you wanting me to read? Don't tell me it's some poor victim, I'd be needing the Ouija if that's the case."

"No, this person's alive. And I'm sure you already know who it is."

She shrugs, placing her hand over a deck of cards in front of her. "You shouldn't be thinking so loud, then. You got anything of theirs?"

Dean reaches for the pocket on the inside of his jacket, pulling out a small journal made for carrying around. It's somewhat new, the leather cover still shines and the pages haven't yellowed yet, but there's also something worn about it, like the dog-eared pages and the fatness of it. He's hesitant as he holds it out, but after a breath he slides it across the velvet table-top.

Miss Monroe presses her fingers over the book for a long while, then Dean watches her shuffle the tarot deck, eyes closed. She stops after a moment to remove one from the top and place is at the centre of the table. She does this twice more until there are three in a row, lying face down.

Flipping over the first, she says, "This is their past."

There's a tower aflame, a king and queen leaping from the window, flying in separate directions, doomed to hit the ground sooner or later.

"The Tower," Monroe reads. "This person has experienced tragedy. Oh, they still feel it, it still hurts. Might never truly stop hurting, but that is the nature of disaster."

Her hand hovers over to turn the second card. A man strung upside-down.

"The Hanged Man is their present," she says, eyes flicking up to Dean. "Helplessness. And the future…"

She turns the final card over to reveal an armoured man astride a white horse, a white rose on the black flag in his hand and people on their knees before him. At the bottom, in thick, black print, it says  _Death_.

 

 

 

"Death does not always mean what you think," Monroe is quick to say. She leans close, hands planted on either side of the set as she peers down intently, like she can see something more behind the pictures that Dean can't. "It can mean an ending, but not necessarily to life. Endings can be good things."

"Drop the bullshit," Dean snaps. "I ain't one of the civilians you pretty up the truth for."

She sighs, index finger tapping the man on the white horse. "The truth? The truth is never pretty. You want the truth? Fine. If you don't fix what you got yourself stuck in, you're gon' lose this person. And you know losing them means losing yourself, too."

"But how do I fix it?" He points to the Hanged Man. "How do I change that?"

She shakes her head. "I told you the reading ain't as accurate if the person in question isn't here. I don't know all the answers, I can't just pull 'em out of a hat like a second-rate magician."

Dean fishes a few crumpled bills from his pocket and tosses them on the table. "Well, thanks for telling me what I already know," he says, getting to his feet. He's at the door, hand barely twisting the knob when Monroe speaks again.

"You're looking in all the wrong places," she says.

"Where am I supposed to look, then?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. Just not where you're looking now."

"Anything else?" Dean asks bitterly.

She stares at him for a moment – or rather, she stares at the space around him. She turns back to the cards laid out on the table and collects them into a neat pile. "There's something stuck on your shoe."

Dean is out the door before she can say anything else, letting it fall shut heavily behind him. Psychics always have to shroud themselves in mystery, a clever way of hiding the fact that they don't really have the answers.

He heads back downstairs, dodging the one step that nearly broke under his weight on the way up. The apartment building is even more aged inside than out, with peeling wallpaper and a bannister worn down by hundreds of hands gripping it.

Back in the sickly hot, crowded streets of New Orleans, Dean is ready to down some whiskey and punch something in the face. He saw a bar a few blocks back, a good place to get that whiskey, he might even find someone itching to be punched. Moving like a fish against a stream back the way he came, he jostles countless shoulders and rouses up a couple of perturbed strangers yelling  _hey!_  at his retreating back.

The bar is a little crowded, full of chatter and a swell of music, a quick and nifty pluck of guitar strings. Dean weasels his way through, everyone swaying in time to the music, and he slumps into the first stool at the bar he can find.

"Whiskey, three fingers," he says when a young woman comes to take his order. She fills a glass and slides it over.

"Long day, sugar?" she asks.

Dean snorts. More like a long lifetime. "Something like that."

"Feel like talking about it?"

Dean looks at her properly now. She's fairly young, early twenties maybe, but she definitely looks like a girl he might try to woo into bed. She leans forward on her elbows, drawing Dean's eyes straight down to where her breasts press together under her shirt.

He takes a small sip of whiskey and puts on his most dazzling smile. It's been a while since he got some action, he figures he deserves it with the shitty week he's been having. "I'm just in town for a little while. Came looking for someone who might be able to help me with something, but it ended up a bust."

"Anything I can help with?" she says, leaning even closer. And Dean realises then just how pretty she is, fox-like green eyes, a button nose and perfectly rounded lips, all framed by a shock of red hair. She smiles at him, flashing straight white teeth. "I get off in an hour."

She gives him a wink as she heads to the other side of the bar to take someone else's order. Dean empties his glass in one swallow and signals for another.

On his second drink, he decides he isn't in the mood. She's beautiful, yes, and she practically threw herself at him, but there are other things playing on his mind. One of which being the three phone calls he's left unanswered.

He gets up, drops a few bills by his empty glass and heads back out onto the street. Checking his phone, he finds Bobby's name taking up space in his missed calls. There's a message, too.

_Dean, answer your damn phone, would you? Don't worry, there's no emergency, except that you were supposed to check in more'n and hour ago. Call me back, idgit._

He knows he should call back, should head back soon, but he's been stuck on this problem for a week now with no inkling of a solution. Dean doesn't do so well with sitting around with his thumb in his ass. His trigger finger's starting to get really damn itchy.

He'd be happy for a vamp to waltz right up to him, right here in the street, just so he'd have a head to detach.

But that isn't really an option, not unless he wants handcuffs on his wrists, besides he's already got the feds on his tail. He doesn't need to draw any attention to himself by picking fights or running off recklessly just because he wants to blow off some steam.

He finds the Impala wedged between cars on the side of a small back street, one of the few vacant spaces he could find this far into the centre of this city, and he starts the two hour drive all the way back to Breaux Bridge and the empty motel room that waits for him. He hasn't had to endure a silent drive by himself for almost two years now – if he's not counting a few weeks ago when Meg was causing trouble - and after a week of being alone he isn't yet used to an empty passenger seat.

He has to put in a cassette just to endure it. The sun remains persistently bright the further he drives and his stomach growls, eager for something to eat. Food isn't high on his list of priorities right now. He's almost half-asleep by the time he gets back to the motel, barely remembering to lock the car as he leaves and stumbles towards his room.

Inside, he locks the door and lines salt at the bottom.

He's tempted just to plant himself straight into the pillows, but he's still wearing yesterday's clothes and about a few days' worth of sweat. He strips down in the grimy bathroom, with its yellowing tiles and water-stained ceiling, and he turns the shower dial as far as it will go.

The noise is comforting, in a weird way. The heavy drum of water against the bath tub masks the silence he's been living with the last week. He undresses and pretends there's not just an empty room waiting on the other side of the door.

The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and he pauses, foot dipped in the tub and already soaked under the spray. Slowly, he retracts, double checks that his shotgun still stands against the toilet.

He's still for a moment, eyes wandering to each corner of the bathroom. He pokes his head out the door, the salt line is still intact, the chain is still in place.

"Paranoid bastard," he whispers to himself, and steps under the hot spray of the shower. He scrubs everything clean, rubbing twice as hard with a soap-soaked sponge. The longer he's in the shower, the longer he can avoid dealing with the real world. Showers are like mystery spots, a place where time has no meaning and everything going on outside is drowned out by the heavy pounding of water.

 

 

He's not sure how long he's in there, long enough for the water to run cold enough to chase him out. He wraps the bright yellow motel towel around his hips and stands on the bathroom tiles, dripping wet. He'll dry off and get some sleep, if he can. The alcohol in the minifridge also poses appeal.

Dean turns, every inch of the room is fogged up with condensation, so much so that he almost misses it. The mirror above the sink, cloudy and dripping, the letters almost faded. But Dean sees it; a single word swiped into the misty glass.

_Jerk_

 

* * *

Bobby picks up on the second ring. Dean's pacing the room, eyes moving from the salt lines under the doors and windows back to the quickly cooling glass of the mirror. The letters have almost faded, and he has to keep checking it's really there to make sure he didn't imagine it.

"Bobby, tell me everything's good," Dean says before Bobby can even say hello.

"What are you on about, boy? It's been business as usual, as in nothing's been going on. I'd have called you otherwise, don't you think?" is the gruff answer. Then, after a beat, "Dean? Has something happened? Are you back in Breaux Bridge?"

The relief is encompassing, a heavy sigh and the loosening of muscles he hadn't known to be so tight. It takes a second, a rough scrub of his palm over his eyes, to gather himself. "Yeah, I just got back," he says. "And there sure was  _something_. There was a message for me on the bathroom mirror when I got out the shower. Just one word:  _jerk_."

There's a pregnant pause on the other line and Dean can clearly picture Bobby's fingers scratching at his bearded chin as he thinks. "That  _is_  something," he finally says. "But I promise you, there ain't been a peep on this end and I've been keeping watch all day."

"It sounds like him, though," Dean says. "Doesn't it?"

"Not sure how much you can get from one word," Bobby reasons. "You got salt in the doorway?"

"I'm not a rookie," Dean sighs. He drops down to sit on the edge of the bed, still dripping wet and wrapped in a damp towel. He glances again at the mirror, the word is almost gone, leaving behind only faint lines that are difficult to decipher.

"Have you considered that maybe you've got something on your tail?" Bobby suggests. "It's not just the feds that are after you."

"If it were a demon, I think I'd know by now. There's no hell stink around here."

"You had a demon yanking your chain just a few weeks ago and you were none the wiser," Bobby points out. His voice drops when he next speaks, tone a lot softer than Dean's used to, "You're more vulnerable on your own. There are things out there that will take advantage of that. We should get together to plan our next move."

Dean just restrains himself from blowing up. His instinct is to yell, or at least throw his cell phone across the room. It's been a long week and he's not a very patient person. "What plan?" he demands, teeth gritting together. "I'm  _tired_ , Bobby. I've been trying to fix this for the past week, non-stop, and we're no closer to an answer than we were in the beginning. That psychic you sent me to was a bust."

"What exactly did she say?" Bobby asks curiously.

"Nothing helpful. But she did say something's stuck on my shoe and I don't think she was talking about gum. There's something here, Bobby, I know it."

"If it's following you, it'll have followed you here. Look, I'm at the library since visiting hours don't start for another hour. I can head over to the motel now and we can figure it out together."

Dean thinks he'd rather have a few drinks than deal with their problem anymore today. He immediately feels guilty just for thinking it.

Then, Bobby says, "You've got a habit of avoiding things you don't want to deal with. I know you're probably itching for a drink or two, but it's not going to help any."

There it is. Even over the phone, Bobby can read him better than anyone. Well, almost anyone. Dean stands there, phone to his ear, and stares at the soft yellow wall paper. What he'd thought were decorative squiggles are actually hundreds of tiny lassos printed onto the walls. Figures, even the lampshade is a cowboy hat.

"I'm going to get a little shut eye then I'll meet you there, Bobby," he says, then hangs up. He pulls the towel from his waist and uses it to scrub his hair dry. He fetches his clothes from the bathroom - the message on the mirror is gone - and he dumps them in his duffel to be cleaned later. He dresses in fresh clothes and drops onto the still unmade bed, water still dripping down the shower walls.

* * *

They've been driving for several minutes– according to the clock on the Impala's dash - and Sam's getting sick of Dean playing the same damn _Stix_  song over and over. The worst part is that no matter how many times he asks Dean to change it, Dean doesn't. He'd put up with it for the two hours to and from New Orleans, but he can't take anymore.

"You need to buy new music," he says, but Dean just keeps on staring at the road ahead. Sam's used to this by now, he's been invisible for… how long has this been going on? Time's starting to meld together into one big lump. Yesterday is today for all he knows.

 _Renegade_ starts playing for the third time in a row, the lyrics beating themselves into Sam's brain, and he doesn't think, just leans over and punches his finger at the tape player's eject button. The music cuts off and the little plastic cassette pokes out of the slot.

For a second, the Impala swerves before Dean gets a grip on the wheel to straighten it.

"What the fuck?" he mutters under his breath.

Sam, meanwhile, is too busy marvelling at the fact he actually touched it. He's beginning to wish he'd written a longer, more explanatory letter to Dean on mirror – something along the lines of  _Dean, I'm here and I've been here this whole time and I'm pretty sure I'm not dead because I think I'd remember dying, besides ghosts can't cross salt lines like I can -_  but getting a physical grasp on anything is proving difficult. Four letters were the best he could manage, and he'd been sure Dean would get it. Who else calls him  _jerk?_

Dean quickly pulls off onto the side of the road, earning a few angry horn blasts from other drivers, and he parks the Impala by a sidewalk with the engine still purring. He fishes one of his battered, home-made EMF meters from the glove compartment and flicks the switch on. Sam's can't help smiling with relief when it picks nothing up, no shrill beeping or flashing green to indicate the presence of ghosts.

"I knew it," he says to his brother. "I'm not dead, Dean. I'm not. Ghosts can't cross salt. I'm – I'm just cursed or something."

Dean doesn't hear him or see him or even feel the waft of air as Sam waves his hand in front of his face. Dean doesn't so much as blink, and Sam slumps back into the passenger seat.

"Where are we even going?" he asks. "You  _are_ looking for me, right? Just – just  _look_  at me, Dean, I'm right here."

No answer, like there's been no answer the countless other times he's said something along these lines. It gets old pretty quick after… however long it's been since this started. Some time is missing, he can tell that much. Sam rubs at his tired eyes and struggles to think back to the beginning, tries to recall the last time he was visible. He can remember going to sleep in the usual damp motel room with bleached motel sheets, Dean right there in the other bed. Weird dreams, he remembers having a lot of strange and vivid dreams about a little girl and… he doesn't remember the rest.

Lucy Finch, that's all there is. A little girl that went missing, their last case before all this mess started.

"Did you find her?" Sam asks quietly, but Dean's too busy tapping the EMF like he suspects it's broken. Sam turns in his seat to find a road sign, some sort of indication of where they might be headed, but there's nothing but Breaux Bridge's old, rickety houses and a blur of cars whipping past. Anything could have happened to Lucy by now, all because Dean's looking for Sam instead of her.

Dean's eyes are narrowed, gaze gliding levelling around the cabin of the car like he might just catch a flicker of something supernatural that needs shooting. Finally, after what feels like several minutes of silence, he leaves the EMF meter on the bench by his hip and pushes the cassette tape back into the music player.

Then, they're hurtling off down the road. The rest of the short journey is filled with the same stupid song, Dean's fingers tapping softly against the wheel, and Sam talking out loud just to keep himself sane. He tries to solve their case.

"Maybe Lucy Finch wasn't taken, maybe she just turned invisible. Maybe she was there the whole time, like me," he says, and the way Dean hums to the music almost sounds like an agreement. Sam ponders further, brushing his hand against the glass, watching his fingertips fall through like it's made of water.

"How come I could write on the mirror and eject the tape when everything just slips right through me? How am I sitting in the car right now and not falling through the footwell? Even weirder, I don't remember the last time I ate or slept. Dean, how long has it been?"

Dean's only answer is a soft mutter of song lyrics under his breath,  _"Hangman is coming down from the gallows and I don't have very long…"_

* * *

The drive must last no longer than half an hour but the quiet of the car drags the minutes by painfully slow. Old houses and trees and cars whiz by like pictures in a flip book. Sam watches Dean and the way his jaw clenches and unclenches like it usually does when he's stressed, index finger tapping restlessly like its eager for a trigger.

It's getting dark when the car slows on city roads, passing buildings Sam can faintly recognise. He's been here before. Finally, Dean pulls into a hospital's parking lot.

"What are we doing here?" Sam asks with increased urgency. "Is this about Lucy Finch?"

Dean doesn't answer, like he never answers. He gets out the car, letting the door fall shut with a  _thunk_ that's louder than necessary. He's anxious in a way Sam hasn't seen since Dad died. Sam slips through the door like it's little more than air, something he's still not used to. He's got a growing list in his head titled  _what the fuck is going on_ and it's already several pages long.

Dean moves fast, striding into the hospital, right past the information desk and towards the elevators with a surety that says he knows exactly where he's going. Sam quickly catches up and waits by Dean's side as the lift goes up. The levels light up as they rise.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Dean's out the second the doors slide apart, turning left without having to look at the signs on the walls. A strange feeling captures Sam then, like a warmth in himself he hadn't realised was missing, like a tug of an invisible rope that could be tied around his middle. Something feels right about being here, and it only makes his heart pick up its pace even further.

They turn the corner and almost run right into Bobby.

"What's going on?" Dean asks, taking in Bobby's raised eyebrows.

"I don't know, I was just going to find someone…" Bobby says, and if he had more to say neither brother hears it because Dean's already marching past, down the hall and into a room at the end. Sam pauses in the doorway and watches Dean snap to the bedside like he's magnetised. He can hear a steadily rising  _beep_ , his heart pounds in his chest as he steps closer for a better look.

For a second, he doesn't know who it is. Just some sick kid, deeper than asleep and half-buried under thin hospital blankets. There are tubes everywhere, up the kid's nose, in the crook of his arm, drooping out from under the blanket between his legs.

 

 

It takes a second. A godawful, long second. Sam knows this kid, although he knows his face the other way around, mole on the other side of his nose as he's seen it plenty times in the mirror. Sam hitches a breath, heart hammering in his chest. The beeps on the monitor ring closer and closer together, the number in the corner of the screen rises higher.

He glances down at the chart hanging from the bedrail.  _Sam Singer_ is scribbled in pen at the top.

"What's going on?" a voice says from behind, then a tiny woman in hospital scrubs walks right  _through_ him. Sam startles and backs into the wall, almost slipping through it altogether. Bobby is standing right beside him, eyes on the Sam in the bed rather than the Sam next to him.

"His heartrate just picked up all of a sudden," Bobby says, fingertips pulling at the hairs on his chin worriedly.

The nurse nods, pulling back the lid of one of Sam's eyes. Even from across the room Sam can see there's nothing but the whites of his eyes showing underneath, like his irises have rolled all the way back, or disappeared completely.

He stumbles away, right through Bobby and back into the hall. His hands are shaking and he quickly glances down just to make sure they're all there, just to be sure he hasn't faded away. There's a sinking sensation in his stomach, a growing surety that he's been here before. Déjà vu strong enough to catch his breath.

Sam glances up to a dark and empty hallway. The constant hum of hospital activity is gone, there's no sign of another person, just the dim halls and the dark windows.

There's something at the end of the corridor, too far to make out, a shadowy shape that's only an imitation of human, no part of it quite fitting with the rest. It doesn't move, but it isn't completely still, wavering in the distance like a mirage. Sam backs up a few steps, tempted to look for Dean but not daring to take his eyes off whatever the thing in front of him is.

It's looking at him. He can feel its gaze on him rather than see it. He doesn't even know if it has any eyes, but he can feel the prickly weight of its attention on him from meters away.

It knows him, and Sam thinks he knows it, too.

Before he can even think to run the thing rushes at him in a cloud of black.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean can't tear his eyes away. Sam is shuddering all over, fingers stiff and hooked like claws, back arching off the hospital bed, trembling violently from head to toe. One second he was stiller than death, the next he was seizing.

The nurse is quiet, standing bedside, eyes flicking back and forth between Sam's shaking body and the watch on her wrist.

"What are you just standing there for?" Dean demands, finding his voice. He lingers forward a step, hand reaching out for… something, but it ends up just falling uselessly back to his side. "Do something! Help him!"

Bobby drops his large palm on Dean's shoulder and eases him back. Dean shrugs him off, wide-eyed as his heart beats furiously in his chest. Sam is still shaking, mouth gaping open like a fish's, eyelids only slightly parted to display the white beneath. Sam hasn't moved a muscle all week, not since the morning Dean couldn't wake him up, and now he can't seem to stop moving.

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave, sirs," the nurse says.

"No way – " Dean begins to protest but he's cut off by a light jostle of his shoulder as more staff slip past him into the room.

"You need to leave now," the doctor orders, not even looking up to make sure he's gone. Sam lets out an awful sound, halfway between a gasp and a gag, as wet bile bubbles up between his lips. The doctor and nurses are quick to flip him onto his side, then Bobby's pushing Dean out into the hallway.

"Let go," Dean growls.

"They know what they're doing, idjit," Bobby replies roughly, keeping a grip on Dean's jacket as they march down the hall. "They don't need your stupid ass distracting them."

They stop in a waiting room, drawing eyes from the people sitting around in the sickly, pink plastic seats. Dean clamps his mouth shut and drops down into the chair furthest from anyone else. His mind keeps reverting back to Sam. Sam not waking up, Sam seizing, Sam suffering and Dean doesn't know how to fix it.

"What's wrong with my brother, Bobby?" Dean asks quietly, too exhausted for much else.

Bobby takes the seat beside him, a gentle hand finding Dean's shoulder. "We'll figure it out," Bobby says. "How many times has that kid landed in a mess, and how many times have we pulled him back? He's a magnet for trouble, just a few weeks ago he had a demon riding shotgun."

They hop from one catastrophe to another. Sam wasn't over what happened with Meg, Steve Wandell had been stuck on his mind. Dean thinks that's why Sam's been obsessed over their recent case, hardly getting any sleep because he was too busy researching anything and everything that might be connected. Any time Dean tried to get him to take a break Sam would just say, "I can't let someone else die because of me".

Then, when the kid finally slept through the night, he didn't wake up in the morning.

"I can't lose him, Bobby," Dean says.

"You won't," Bobby replies surely. "Kid's a tough one, and I ain't going anywhere. We'll wait to hear from the doc, then we'll get back to work figuring this thing out."

Dean sighs. "The doc doesn't know any more than we do. There's nothing they can do for Sam."

* * *

Sam comes to, shivering with a chill that rattles his bones, aching all over like he's just been steamrolled. He peels an eye open and finds a car tyre looming close enough that he can see every groove in the rubber. Sitting up awakens his pain, almost sending him right back to the ground. He moves slow, easing himself up onto his elbows.

It's near sunset and Sam's lying in a hospital parking lot.

He blinks several times, head feeling foggy like it's stuffed with cotton. He slowly shifts so he's resting upright on his knees, just then a woman walks briskly by with a click of her heels.

"Excuse me!" Sam calls, but she doesn't even turn around. He tries a few more times with other passers-by, and it's not until the fifth person doesn't even jerk at his hand in their face that he begins to panic

Sam glances upwards at the building, it's more glass than brick, the mirror-like windows are bright orange as the sun begins to set. He squints against the brightness, standing there on the sidewalk. As people walk by and through him like he's nothing more than air, Sam tries to not to lose it. He calls out again. Nothing. There's an older man reading a paper on a bench by the hospital's entrance, still and quiet in contrast to the bustling people around him.

"Sir?"

No answer. The man licks his thumb and turns the page.

"Just look at me… or something."

Nothing. Something wells up inside Sam, a lump lodges in his throat and he realises his eyes have begun to sting.

"Fuck," he mutters. This, whatever's happening to him, it's not death. He can't be dead. Jesus, if he's dead then Dean will kill him. Again. Sam strains to think back, but his mind is filled with an empty space, the vastness of which only frustrates him more. He glances around again, eyes locking on the hospital sign. Breaux Bridge, at least he knows where he is. This is the last place he remembers being before… whatever's going on now.

Despite the blank memory and the invisibility thing, Sam's got something else taking up space at the front of his mind.

Lucy Finch, the little girl they came here for in the first place.

* * *

The doctors, or course, have no reasonable explanation as to why a healthy twenty-three-year-old man suddenly fell into a deep coma one day. The numerous tests and scans come up with nothing but a perfectly normal brain, and perfectly normal blood, everything from his head to toe is perfectly normal, if you ignore the fact that Sam wouldn't wake up even if an atom bomb was dropped nearby.

They promise the seizure didn't last long, and Sam is fine now – and Dean so badly wants to shout,  _he's not fine because he's not awake!_ but all he can do is bite his tongue and nod along like he understands. Fuck, he's tired.

Dean's never comfortable with leaving Sam in the hospital every night. Whenever visiting hours are on, he and Bobby make sure at least one of them is around to keep an eye out. Feds and hunters and demons are after them, and Sam isn't exactly in any shape to defend himself. They make sure the room is lined with salt before they leave.

"What was Sam doing before all this started?" Bobby asks later that night, tapping his pen against the metal table in the motel room's kitchenette. He's got five giant books spread out on the surface, most of them yellowed and brittle with age, only one of them written in a language Dean understands.

"I  _told_  you," Dean says, "he just went to sleep. In the morning I couldn't wake him up. We've been over this."

He'd thought Sam was just tired at first, then he thought the kid was fucking with him, but after fifteen solid minutes of shaking Sam's shoulder with no response Dean cracked and called Bobby in a panic.

Dean drops his head back until it rests against the headboard of the bed he's stretched out on. He's been festering in worry and now he can barely remember most of the week before the incident. It was a normal job, a slow one with few leads that was already looking to be the work of someone rather than something. Dean was nearly ready to pack up and leave town, leave the case to the cops, but Sam was adamant they stayed.

"But before that," Bobby prompts. "Did he eat or drink something different? Did he talk to someone? There's gotta be something."

Dean presses his lips tight and fiddles with a loose thread on the cuff of his shirt. "It was just the case. Missing little girl. We didn't have any leads and I thought maybe it wasn't our deal."

"But Sam wanted to stay," Bobby finishes. Dean nods. He thinks back a couple of weeks when Sam was vibrating on caffeine, purple hanging under his eyes, pacing the room with a handful of notes and documents, saying,  _The answer's here. I know it._

Dean wishes he had that surety now.

"I've checked for hex bags," he says. "I've performed exorcisms and every waking ritual recorded in your goddamn useless books. I've even fucking prayed. Nothing. And no psychic or shaman had anything helpful to say."

"Maybe we haven't used the right psychic. Maybe we should bring one _to_  Sam," Bobby suggests with more nonchalance than necessary. He knows what Dean's answer will be.

Dean says, "No."

"Why not?"

"I ain't exactly feeling okay with letting some hoodoo wacko near my brother."

Bobby raises his eyebrow. "Your brother's a psychic."

"He's different."

"Is he?"

Dean's met a lot of psychics in his life and they never fail to freak him out a little. Even Sam. Especially Sam, when his face scrunches up in pain and his eyes gloss over and twitch like he's watching a movie no one else can see.

"I know a psychic that can be trusted," Bobby says. "She could be a real help to us. To Sam."

Dean shakes his head. He's been here before, looking for someone else. He thinks of Dad's journal and one of its few secrets they managed to decipher. Only one person can help them now.

_I went to Missouri and learned the truth._

* * *

The Finchs' home is in an old neighbourhood, the kind of neighbourhood where the neighbours actually like each other and the kids play safely in the street.

The wooden slats on the outside of the Finchs' home are painted soft blue, the hanging baskets on the porch are packed with flowers, wilting now as if they've been neglected recently. He can see a light on in the main room, a dim glow at the corner of the dark house, like the last ember in a dying fire.

Sam climbs the steps to the front door, like he did before when he came suited-up with Dean – detectives Plant and Page again – only this time the wood doesn't creak beneath his weight. He can see Mrs Finch through the living room window, red-eyed as she bounces her baby boy idly on her knee. He won't stop crying, and neither will she.

Sam jolts as something taps the window. A cat sits on the ledge inside, an ugly thing with a squashed face and too much fur, and it stares right at him. Sam crouches down.

"You can see me," he says.

The cat's paw swats at him, colliding with the glass instead. This seems to aggravate it, so it settles on hissing at him. It's warm, even as it gets darker, and Sam thinks he can feel the gentle breeze on his face, almost. And with the soft  _shhh_ of the wind, there's the rusty creak of metal scraping metal.

Sam follows the noise around the back of the house, slips right through the high wood gate like it's nothing, like walking through an open doorway. He shudders all the way down his spine and has to stop to catch his breath for a moment. He glances down at his hands, just to be sure he's still there. He's opaque as he should be, he feels numb though, and his skin is pale.

The creaking continues and Sam realises he'd stopped breathing so he sucks in a lungful of air and finds no relief. He continues along the stone path into the Finchs' back yard.

The grass has overgrown a little, a pink bike rests abandoned against the deck, and at the back of the lawn is a swing set, on which sits a little girl he's seen plenty of times before in newspaper articles.

"Lucy?" he says. She looks up then from her perch on the swing, just sitting and letting the breeze blow her gently back and forth. Sam stumbles forward until they're only a meter or so apart. "Lucy – "

"You're late!" she cuts him off, folding her arms across her chest. "You said 'be right back' but you took ages."

Sam blinks at her. She's glaring up at him with more force than a ten-year-old should possess, terrifying in her pink floral nighty.

"But…" Sam trails off, still taking in Lucy, a real little girl and not just a 2D girl on paper. The hard furrow of her brow softens and she gazes up at him, dark brown eyes widening.

"We've been looking for you," Sam finally says. "You've been missing."

"Oh no," Lucy says, arms dropping to her lap. "You forgot again."

"Forgot?" Sam feels like he's just going in circles now, repeating words like a broken record. "I don't understand."

"The  _monster_ ," Lucy huffs, as if it's obvious. "The monster that got me is trying to get you, too. Every time it catches you, it makes you forget again, remember?"

 

 

Sam shakes his head. It's dark in the garden now, the grass beneath his socked feet is nothing but blackness, but he can see Lucy clear as the moon above. He goes over what she just said, feels his stomach drop to his toes.

"Lucy," he says, slowly because more than anything he doesn't want to ask. "You said the monster got you."

He's seen enough ghosts in his life to recognise one right in front of him, but he's not sure why it took him so long this time. Maybe it's because he can't feel the cold, maybe it's because he didn't want to believe, or maybe it's because he's one himself.

"You have to find out a way to tell my mama," Lucy says. "Remember? You said you'd help me get to the better place."

There's a flash in his mind of a shadowy figure, one that watches without looking, one that emits that hair-raising sensation that usually follows a nightmare. Concentrating doesn't fill in any more of the blank space in his mind.

Sam looks down at Lucy's face, her face is puzzled. Dropping to his knees, he doesn't feel the cold squelch of dewy grass soaking through his sweat pants to his skin. There's not a stain nor mark on him at all. Lucy, on the other hand, has mud caked all over her feet.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so sorry I didn't get to you in time."

"I was gone before you got here," she says quietly, and there's nothing but her voice and the call of an owl in the distance. "It isn't your fault. It was the monster."

She shuffles close and curls her arms around his neck. He can't feel her, not her skin or her hair tickling his face, but he does feel a chill that runs through to his very core. She lets him go and steps back, returning to her seat on the swing. She's already fading.

"Am I dead?" Sam asks.

Lucy shakes her head. "No. Just sleeping."

"I don't understand – " Sam says, but Lucy's already gone.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Mr Winchester, we're doing everything we can for your brother but his recent decline is something we're struggling to understand," the doctor says. Her face is pinched with sympathy, or maybe she's just terrified Dean's about to go nuts on her. He's tempted, he really is.

Bobby's places a well-timed hand on his shoulder. "We're, uh, grateful for everything you're doing, really."

The doctor – Dean never did catch her name – lets out a breath and smiles warily. She dismisses herself, tense shoulders visible dropping the second she's out the door.

The tube protruding from Sam's mouth is new, but everything else is the same. The hospital gown is still tugged low on his chest to make room for wires Dean couldn't guess the purpose of, his hands have been carefully placed at his sides, his head tilts ever so slightly to the right.

Dean drops into the vacant seat beside the bed and presses his palms against his eyes. He watches a kaleidoscope of shapes moves against his closed eyelids and hopes that when he opens them again Sam might be staring back.

"Missouri will be here in a few hours," Bobby says softly, as if afraid to penetrate the quiet of the room, his voice barely rises above the beeping machines. "We'll sort this out."

"Will we?" Dean snaps. His frustrations have been held down long enough, he can feel a  _snap_ like an elastic band breaking inside him. "We got nothing, Bobby. Nothing." He stands up, begins to pace. "Dad told me, save him or kill him. I'm going to  _save_ him, whether it's from fucking demons or – or whatever this is, I will not lose anyone else."

Dean can feel himself draining, he stops, arms hanging lamely at his sides. "I don't know how to fix this," he says, "and that terrifies me."

Bobby stares at him. "This isn't the same as what happened to your daddy," he says. "You won't lose your brother."

Dean glances down, to Sam's pale, unmoving figure, his lax face and glued-shut eyes, and he wishes he could believe Bobby. He might not admit it to his brother, but he's really missed the kid yapping in his ear all the time. He'd give anything for Sam to tell him all about the annual migration of Saiga Antelope or something else dumb.

The world seems so much quieter without Sam in it, and if Sam goes… well, what's the point of anything.

Dean shakes his head minutely. It's that same gaping hole Dad's death opened up, and it's waiting to swallow him up. If Dad were here now, he'd say what he usually said about an impossible mystery.

_Usually when you can't find something, it's hiding right under your nose._

* * *

Sam thinks he might ache all over, but it's hard to tell considering he doesn't have a body. Lucy didn't reappear, no matter how much Sam called for her, late into the night when the whole street was pitch black and silent.

He found his way back to the motel, feeling eyes on his back the entire way there, but the sight of the Impala still waiting dutifully in the parking lot left him almost breathless with relief.

Now, it almost four in the morning and Dean is fast asleep on top of the covers, his boots still on his feet. Sam tip-toes over to the window, a force of habit from the nights he couldn't sleep after Jess and ended up pacing the room as quietly as he could to keep Dean from waking. Outside, everything is still as if a picture paused in a movie. Only the occasional late-night driver disturbs the silence.

No sign of any shadow monsters. No sign of Lucy, either.

Sam sighs, his breath should fog the window but it doesn't. He should feel hungry, but he isn't. Then why does he feel like he's gone ten rounds with a Wendigo?

He closes his eyes and hears beeping. A slow rhythm, every second, on and on and on. Sam glances around the room, the bright red numbers on the alarm clock catching his eye, but the sound isn't coming from there, or anywhere else in the room. It's coming from inside his head.

That empty space in his mind is beginning to itch.

_Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep…_

Next thing he knows, he's lashing out and swiping an empty beer bottle of the table in the kitchenette. Dean shoots up in bed immediately, gun aimed in Sam's direction as he turns on the bedside lamp.

"I touched it," Sam says, and he's immediately taken back to another moment. Him and Dean in the car, Sam ejecting the cassette tape. This is more than déjà vu, this has happened before.

Dean is on his feet, inspecting the mess of smashed glass by nudging a shard with the toe of his boot, he glances around the room.

"I'm right here," Sam says, but Dean walks right past him to double check the salt lines. Of course, they're untouched. Dean turns on the room, eyes narrowed.

"Show yourself," he barks, swinging his gun in an arc. "Whatever you are, you've been following me. You did something to my brother, didn't you?"

"Dude, I  _am_ your brother," Sam sighs. He tries pulling on the chair tucked under the table, just to move it even an inch to show Dean he's here, but his fingers slide through the back. He hisses, a sudden pain searing through his head. He gets a flash of a foggy mirror with  _jerk_ painted onto the surface.

"Jesus, what's happening to me?" he mutters, squeezing his eyes shut. It's a pain he's all too familiar with, the kind of pain that accompanies visions of the future.

The room is quiet for a moment, Dean doesn't shift from his stance by the door. Slowly, he lowers his gun and says, "Sammy?"

The ache in Sam's head still throbs. "Yes! I'm right here!"

Dean pauses, and for a second Sam thinks he heard him, but he steps over the smashed glass, past Sam, and towards the mini fridge to get a can of beer. He breaks the top with a hiss, taking a long, gulping swallow.

"I'm losing it," Dean says quietly, drooping into the seat Sam had tried to pull out only a few seconds earlier. He doesn't move from there, slowly sipping from the can for a long while after. It's almost half an hour past four when Dean finally gives into his exhaustion, and he ends up asleep half-sprawled on the table, the empty beer can teetering dangerously close to the edge.

* * *

Missouri Mosely comes stepping off her bus at noon. Dean is used to living on too little hours of sleep, but he's beginning to feel dead on his feet as the days have gone on. That morning, Bobby had taken one look at Dean and the shadows under his eyes and said, "I've seen corpses that looked fresher than you."

Bobby's with Sam now, which leaves Dean the job of collecting Missouri.

"You need a better night's sleep, boy," is the first thing she says to him.

"It's good to see you, too," Dean replies. Next thing, her tiny, soft hands are on his cheeks and she's gazing at him like she knows his every secret. She probably does, which is a little terrifying.

"Oh, honey," she says, more gently this time. She leans back, arms folded across her chest. "I'm sorry about your father. And your brother, things are getting worse? You shoulda called me straight away."

"I know," Dean admits, "but Lawrence is a long way away, I didn't want to drag you all the way here if I could've figured it out myself."

"Don't be so stupid," she says shortly. "I told you boys not to be strangers, didn't I? Come on now, we'll fix this mess together."

Dean picks up her bag, simple black and heavier than it should be for a woman so small, and drops it into the back seat.

"What have you tried so far?" Missouri asks. They're stuck in traffic, jammed between a minivan and a Lamborghini.

"Checked for signs of witches, came up with nothing. Tried a few spells ourselves, still nothing. I went to see a psychic in New Orleans," Dean lists off. Missouri purses her lips so he quickly adds, "Bobby suggested her, she was closer than you."

"What was her name?"

"Uh, something Monroe… Mollie, I think."

"Minnie Monroe?" Missouri says. "Girl's got some talent, but she's more interested in putting on a show than anything. Not too fond of hunters."

Dean snorts. "Yeah, I got that."

"What did she say?"

"A whole bunch of nothing. She did a tarot reading, told me what I already know. She said I'm looking in the wrong places. And, uh,  _something's stuck on your shoe_ , she said."

"Something's following you?"

The Impala jerks forward a little as the cars on the road inch forwards. "Yeah, I think so," Dean says.

Missouri taps her index finger against her chin thoughtfully. It's a hot day and the car's beginning to feel like a furnace, Dean rolls down the window, squinting against the bright sunlight that pierces the windshield. Soon, Missouri might figure out what's wrong with Sam. Sam might wake up. Dean might get his brother back.

He's so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't realise his phone is ringing until Missouri tells him to answer it.

"Hey, Bobby."

"Dean, turn back  _now."_

"What? Why?"

"Feds. They're here."


	3. Chapter 3

Dean pulls the curtains closed, the motel room is dim, the yellow wall paper dulled to brown in the dark. Missouri sits quietly at the kitchenette table, both hands folded on her lap.

"You gonna tell me why the FBI is looking for you?" she asks. She tips her head to the side, curls bouncing.

"Long story," Dean replies. He leans over to peer behind a crack in the blinds. The parking lot is empty, he can't see any sign of someone watching; no man across the street peering over a newspaper, nobody who's been sitting in a parked car longer than necessary.

Dean checks his phone for the third time in the past minute, the screen comes up empty. No missed calls. Bobby had been abrupt in his warning, hanging up before Dean could ask too many questions.

"We need to move," Dean says, more to himself than anything. "If the feds found Sam, they'll know I'm not far off. Motels will be the first places they look." He turns to Missouri. "Any chance you know if they're headed this way?"

"Your brother's the precognitive one, not me," she says, rising to her feet. "Speaking of, how are we going help your brother when the FBI is keeping a close watch?"

"They aren't looking for you. You can go in there and do your thing."

Missouri raises an eyebrow. "Don't you think the FBI might be interested in why I'm visiting someone on their most wanted list?"

Dean wishes she wasn't right. He tries his best not to think of his brother, helpless and unaware, being surrounded by strangers who want nothing more than to throw him in a cell. It's only a matter of time before this turns up in the papers. Dean can see the headline already:  _One half of murderous duo found comatose in small Louisiana town hospital!_

The click of a key turning in the room's door has Dean whipping his gun out. Bobby steps in, hands immediately rising.

"Put that away, would you?" he barks.

Dean drops his weapon as Bobby double locks the door behind him, latching the chain just to be safe. He and Missouri nod to each other, not bothering for introductions. Dean wonders if they've met before, but, then again, Bobby knows just about everyone in the life. The two of them have been dealing with the undead before Dean could even talk. He feels a little more at ease now that the three of them are in one place, everyone except for his brother, that is.

"What's going on?" Dean asks Bobby. "What about Sam?"

"Feds were asking doctors questions," Bobby says. "They know who Sam is and they're not letting him go."

"They can't arrest a dude in a coma," says Dean, he realises he's pacing and quickly stops himself before he wears holes in the rug. "What are they gonna do, cuff him?"

"They could take him somewhere else," Bobby says quietly. "And if Sam wakes up, they'll lock him up before he can get a word out. We have to get him out of there."

"How the fuck will we do that?"

"I don't know!"

"Well, thanks for the suggestion, Bobby! Really helpful."

"Excuse me," Missouri cuts in. "I think I have an idea."

"What?" Dean asks impatiently.

Missouri smiles softly, not quite meeting Dean's eyes, staring a little to his left. "We could ask Sam," she says.

* * *

Sam thinks he's imagining things for a second, but Missouri is looking in his direction, eyes not quite meeting his, she glances around the space he's occupying like she's trying to spot a fly she can hear buzzing.

"What?" Dean is the first to ask.

"I mean, we could ask Sam," Missouri replies calmly. "He's right here with us."

Dean and Bobby exchange a look, eyebrows creeping up to their hairlines.

"You can see me?" Sam asks incredulously. After who-knows-how-long of being pretty much non-existent, it's refreshing to have someone aware he's in the room.

"No, honey, but I can hear you."

Dean's face suddenly pales. "He's – he's not…"

"Not a spirit, no," Missouri says slowly, contemplating. She furrows her brow as she thinks. "Something close though. If I were to make a guess I'd say you're dreamwalking, Sam."

"Wait, go back a few steps," Dean cuts in. "Dreamwalking is astral projection, right? Sam can't do that. He  _wouldn't_ do that."

Missouri folds her arms over her chest. "And why not?"

"Because that means he's doing this on purpose," says Dean. Sam can see the muscles in his jaw clenching, his lips are pressed into a hard line, the usual signs that he's starting to get pissed off. He tends to mix his worry and fear with anger.

"I swear even _I_ don't know what's happening," Sam insists, despite knowing he can't be heard. "Please believe me. I just went to sleep, and the next thing I know… I don't actually know. Time's warped or something." He sighs. "I don't know."

"He doesn't know what's happening any more than you do," Missouri translates. She narrows her eyes at Dean. "Now calm down before you blow a fuse."

Bobby shifts from foot to foot, floorboards creaking under his weight. "How can someone astral project without knowing?" he asks. "Not that I don't believe you, Sam." He glances uncertainly a few feet to Sam's right. "I just know astral projection is a skill that takes a lot of practice from experienced psychics or witches. No one accidentally wanders out of their own body."

Missouri taps her chin. "You're right," she agrees. "I never heard of someone dreamwalking without knowing it. What were you boys up to in town before this happened?"

"Just a case," Dean says. "Little girl went missing. Sam was working overboard, though, barely slept most nights."

"I was trying to find that little girl," Sam argues. He thinks of Lucy's spirit left alone in her back yard and he feels nauseous.

Missouri ignores him, nodding to herself. "It is possible to go wandering without meaning to, but that usually happens with someone who's experienced. They tend to know what's going on and head back home right away." She turns to face Sam's direction, eyes resting level with his chest. "Maybe you were so desperate to find this girl that you went looking even while you were sleeping. But something's wrong. People who astral project usually find their way back one way or another. No one stays away longer than a few hours."

"What happens if you go walking longer than a few hours?" Bobby asks.

Missouri's eyes lower. "The body weakens, as does the spirit. It makes a person more vulnerable to dark forces that linger on the sleeping plane."

Shadows come to the forefront of Sam's mind, along with Lucy's words,  _the monster that got me is trying to get you, too._

"I think I might have met one of those dark forces," Sam says. "Something's wrong with me and I can't remember. I do know it's the same thing that - "

 _That killed Lucy Finch_. He can't finish the sentence.

There's a lump in his throat that threatens to make his eyes water if he says anymore. He wonders if the feeling is real, or just the memory of a feeling. He doesn't have a throat nearby to be sure, let alone eyes to shed tears.

"Wait. Where is my body?" he asks.

Missouri waves him towards the bathroom. "Come on, I'll explain things a little better." She pauses and turns to Dean and Bobby. "You two, get working on a plan."

Sam almost laughs at the looks on Dean and Bobby's faces. Missouri, for such a tiny woman, can be sharper and scarier than any monster he's ever met. Inside the bathroom, Missouri closes the door and perches herself to sit on the rim of the bathtub.

Sam wanders in a circle and pauses in front of the mirror above the sink. He can remember, vaguely, being here before. He wrote a message on the glass for his brother. Slowly, he reaches out, index finger stretched to meet the mirror's surface. He touched it before, just like he swiped the bottle the other night, and maybe he can do it again.

His hand slips through the mirror like he's waving it through air. He lets out a sigh of frustration.

On the other side of the bathroom, Missouri tugs idly on the shower curtain. "You here?" she asks.

"Yeah, by the sink," Sam answers with a small wave.

She places her hands on her lap and smiles conspiratorially in his direction. "Good. I thought we should talk, from one gifted person to another."

Sam isn't sure he agrees with the use of the word 'gifted', not in regards to himself, at least.

"You think this is like my visions?" he asks, heart sinking. The visions are painful enough to deal with already, he's not sure he can manage the possibility of accidentally wandering out of his body regularly.

"Oh, I'm sure it is," Missouri says. "Sam, I think you're capable of more than you know. Back in Lawrence, in your old house, you could sense things even I couldn't pick up, and I've been honing my skills for decades."

The words alone are enough to make Sam shudder. Ever since he first dreamed of Jessica's death, he knew something was wrong with him. He thinks he might have known long before that, even. He never asked for visions, not any of it.

"What's happening to me?" He asks. He has asked Missouri this question before, a year earlier. She didn't have an answer then, he's not hopeful she has one now.

"I wish I could tell you," Missouri says softly. "But do you know what? I first heard someone's thoughts when I was about thirteen. The mail man came one morning and he was chatting loud as anything about how he resented his wife, but his lips weren't moving. If it weren't for the fact my mama could talk to the dead, I might have thought I was going crazy."

"Can you hear what people are thinking all the time?" Sam can't help asking.

"Oh, yeah. Can be a real pain in my behind sometimes," she chuckles. "Gifts like these can feel like curses, but it's all about what you use them for."

Sam isn't sure if that applies to him. He's not the same, not when a demon has something to do with his gifts. He's getting stronger in a way he doesn't want to be, and who knows what else he'll be able to do?

One day he might be like Scott Carrey, a touch of his finger might have the ability to electrocute someone. Sam's eyes lock on a sliver of black rot, wedged between two tiles in the corner of the room, he thinks how that rot will spread across the room and infect everything in its wake if it's not taken care of.

"Sam?" Missouri says. "Are you still there? You've been quiet for a while."

Sam shakes himself. "Yeah, I'm here. Sorry," he mutters, pacing nervously, and trying not to pay attention to the fact that his footsteps are soundless. "There's something stalking me," he tells her. "Every time I run into it, it messes with my head. I think it killed Lucy Finch."

Missouri's expression doesn't falter. If she's worried or surprised, she doesn't show it. "What does it look like?"

"I'm not sure," Sam admits. He closes his eyes and tries to sift through his memories. "It's like a shadow, like a person's shadow. I can't be sure, my memories are a little fuzzy."

"There are things we can't see this plane," Missouri explains, speaking slowly, choosing each word deliberately. "Right now, you're walking between our plane of existence and the next. It's a dangerous place to be. Staying there too long can do us harm, it can do damage to our minds and draw dark spirits to us. Psychic energies are like beacons to certain creatures."

"You think that's why this thing is after me?" he asks. "Why was it after Lucy, then? Is she like us?"

Missouri sucks in a deep breath through her nose, her eyebrows draw together sadly. "I don't know," she admits. "Maybe she was, but maybe she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don't think there's any way of knowing now."

The two of them fall quiet and they listen to the whir of the fan overhead. The tap over the sink is leaking, a drop of water falls loose every couple of seconds. Drip, drip, drip. Beep, beep, beep. That incessant beeping… Sam wishes he could claw it out of his head.

"Am I in a hospital?" he asks suddenly. It makes sense now; the puzzle pieces are finally beginning to slot together.

"Yes. Dean didn't know what else to do when you wouldn't wake up."

"I can hear it," Sam says. "The hospital, I mean.

"If you let yourself feel it, you can find your way back," Missouri says. "There's a connection between the spirit and the body that can't be broken."

Sam can feel it, he thinks he's felt it all along, like the tug of a string urging him in a certain direction.

"This thing, whatever it is that's attacking me, it doesn't want me to find my body," Sam says. "Why?"

"Some things can't cross onto the physical plane," Missouri explains. She waves her hand a little in the air, as if trying to catch her thoughts. "My guess is that if you wake up, it can't follow you here. It doesn't want to let you go."

* * *

The plan is simple: wake Sam up, then break him out of the hospital.

However, taking into account that the FBI will be looking for Dean, that there are hundreds of people in the hospital who might spot him, and that Sam isn't exactly going to walk out on his own, it's all easier said than done.

Bobby's got that look on his face, the same one he had after John died, the look that says he's worried Dean's about to do something stupid.

"How are you gonna get in there unnoticed?" he asks, wringing his cap between his hands.

"You know me Bobby," Dean says, plastering on a grin, "I'm good at improvising."

"Maybe I should be the one to do it," Bobby argues. "They don't know me, they won't be looking for me. The second someone recognises you, it's over."

"I'm faster than you," Dean points out, "and stronger. I can carry Sam out if I have to. Besides, your job is to create a distraction."

Bobby sighs wearily and nods, one short dip of his head. "What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know," Dean shrugs. "Just think of something. Yell fire."

"Maybe we should plan this a little more thoroughly," Missouri suggests. Dean hadn't noticed her come back into the room and he nearly jumps out of his skin. She crosses the room and sits uncomfortably on one of the rickety chairs in the corner of the room, one eyebrow raised at Dean.

"No time," Dean says. "You heard Bobby, they're going to move Sam to God-knows-where." He turns to address the entire room, eyes darting around for any glimpse of his brother, even just a shadow. "Sam, I'm not gonna let them take you."

Missouri shakes her head and waves her hand vaguely to her side, presumably where Sam is standing. "He says this is a stupid idea."

"Thanks for the encouragement," Dean says dryly to the empty space. "I'll just leave you to the feds then?"

"He says he'd rather you did."

Dean wishes he could shake some sense into his brother, but he can't even see where the idiot is, let alone touch him. He can imagine Sam, that brooding expression he perfected as a teen plastered on his face. Dean used to love pushing his buttons, messing with the kid until the string holding his temper in check snapped.

"You gonna stop me?" Dean prods. "What exactly can you do to stop me from getting into that hospital to save your lazy ass?"

Missouri's mouth purses, and Dean can tell she's getting an earful. "I'm not going to repeat that," she says flatly.

"Look, Sam," Dean says, locking eyes to Missouri's left, around the height Sam is. "I'm not leaving you, okay? We'll get your body and you'll hop back in. This whole mess will be over."

Whatever Sam says has Missouri's face softing. "He says it ain't over until Lucy Finch's spirit is put to rest."

Dean's flinches. He hates to admit that the missing little girl hadn't been his number one priority for days, he'd almost forgotten about her. And now that he hears she's dead, his insides feel tight with guilt.

"Shit," he mutters, scrubbing his palm over his face. He takes a deep breath. "One thing at a time."

Bobby and Missouri are watching him expectantly. He clears his throat. "Everyone clear on the plan?"

Bobby scoffs. "What plan? You run in there like an idiot while I try to make the feds look the other way?"

"No. I sneak in there with Sammy, he jumps back into his body. Meanwhile, you clear the way for us to make a getaway."

"A getaway in what?" Bobby asks incredulously. "Your car ain't exactly what you'd call inconspicuous. You might as well have a sign over your head."

"Fine," Dean snaps back. "We'll use your car."

"And who'll be running the engine while I'm supposed to be distracting the goddamn FBI?"

Dean drops his face into his palm. "We don't have a lot of time, Bobby."

"I know, but we can't go in there half-cocked. We can't risk you getting caught."

"I  _won't_ get caught," Dean insists.

"How do you know?"

Missouri clears her throat and the two of them spin around. She glares at the two of them, hands resting on her hips, the expression on her face is nothing short of intimidating.

"Sam says you both need to shut up, and I agree. He also wants to let you know there's a monster after him. That complicates your plan, don't you think?"

Dean swears for a moment he can feel the floor go out from beneath his feet. "What? And he didn't think it was worth mentioning earlier?"

"I don't appreciate that tone," Missouri says sharply. "And I'd have told you before now if you two hadn't been bickering."

"What's after Sam?" Dean asks, restraining from raising his voice. He's not sure he's willing to be on the receiving end of Missouri's wrath if he loses his temper with her. He can feel the clock ticking down, time is running out, and he's itching to something, anything.

"He's not sure."

Patience drained, Dean grabs his jacket off the end of his bed and slips it on. "We're doing this," he decides. "Now."


	4. Chapter 4

Bobby's car is a lot smaller than the Impala and Dean's muscles strain where he's folded himself into the backseat, back bent, head between his knees. He's a big guy, despite the fact his little brother constantly dwarfs him, and men who are six feet tall aren't made for hiding in the back seats of cars.

He keeps his head low, but can't help a peek out the window. No sign of anyone who looks even remotely like they belong to the FBI, but that fact doesn't reassure him.

Bobby and Missouri sit in the front seats as they cruise slowly around the back of the building.

"How long?" Dean asks impatiently.

"Ash is working on it," Bobby replies gruffly. "He'll call once he's cut the security cameras off."

"Good," Dean mutters, nodding to himself. He glances over his shoulder to the empty space beside him. "Sammy, you ready?"

Missouri turns her head, ear pointed to the back seat as she listens. "He says you've lost your damn mind and you should rethink what you're about to do," she says. She turns her gaze on Dean and waggles her finger at him like he's a misbehaving child. "You might do well to listen."

Dean rolls his eyes, kicking his boot at the empty space, hoping Sam will get the message. "And leave you to the feds  _and_ a freaking monster? No way!"

Missouri shakes her head. "You should think this through a little more."

"He never does," Bobby grumbles. Dean can picture Sam's smug face so he sends another kick in his direction. The engine cuts off and Bobby puts the car into park. It's another few minutes – a few long, seemingly endless minutes – before Bobby's cell phone lets out a shrill ring.

"Sam, come on," Dean says, unfolding himself from the seat.

Gently, he opens the car door a crack to peer outside. There's no one else there and he takes the opportunity to sprint across the tarmac towards a back door that reads 'staff only'. He presses his back up against a wall and retrieves Sam's lock-picking set from his back pocket.

Stealth is something his father trained into him a long time ago, he remembers being seven years old and picking a lock for the first time, his father told him not to make a sound while breathing. But Sam's always been better when it comes to going unnoticed, despite his ridiculous height.

Dean grins at the  _click_ that's roused from a final twist of the pin _,_ he takes a second to glance around. Behind him, Bobby and Missouri are watching anxiously from the car. Dean carefully turns the door handle and eases the door open. It creaks on its hinges as Dean steps inside.

He finds himself in a dark corridor, he can hear the humming sound of machines, the roll of wheels on a hard floor, and the distant beat of a pop song playing. Crouching low, Dean inches along the hall until he finds another door marked  _laundry._

He pulls the door's handle and inches it open a crack. On the other side are dozens of washing machines and dryers, along with several neatly organised hampers of scrubs that need washing and others that are dried and folded.

A worker whistles as he passes the door, pulling a trolley along behind him. Dean watches with bated breath as he crosses the room and exits through a door on the opposite side, the sound of pop music rises and falls as the door swings shut behind him. Dean rises to his feet and enters the room, making a beeline for the stack of clean scrubs.

The room smells strongly of bleach and Dean wrinkles his nose as he rifles through the clean stack of green scrubs. He quickly begins to exchange his shirt and jeans for the hospital attire. Behind him, one of the trolleys rolls away an inch with a squeak. Dean freezes, but he's the only one in the room.

"That better be you, Sammy," he mutters, bundling up his own discarded clothes. He marches back through door he entered from and continues down the long, windowless corridor until he meets another door at the end. The sign above reads  _stairway._

Dean hurries inside and climbs the steps two at a time. He pauses on the third floor and takes a glance upwards; the staircase spirals up high enough to make him dizzy. A floor below, a door opens and someone's footsteps grow closer. Dean dashes through the nearest door and ends up next to an elevator. The people waiting outside look over and Dean quickly ducks his head, walking the other way.

Spotting a trash can, he dumps his clothes inside. He freezes when a nurse behind a desk stares, but she shakes her head impatiently and returns to typing away on the computer.

A trolley rattles by, filled with plastic-wrapped syringes and white surgical masks. Dean takes the opportunity as the woman pushing the trolley pauses to tie her shoelace, and he swipes one of the masks.

Lower-half of his face covered, Dean retreats to the stairwell. It's empty again and Dean sighs with relief.

"That was lucky, huh, Sammy?" he says breathlessly. He can picture Sam's unimpressed face, clear as day. He has a good guess what Sam might be saying right now, too.  _Do you know how dangerous that was? You could have been caught!_

Dean's heart is racing, he feels flooded with adrenaline. He hurries up the next three flights of stairs, feet barely touching the ground as he goes.

Ward 12, Sam's ward, is quiet. The nurses and doctors here know him, they'll be keeping an eye out for him. Dean is slow to step out onto the corridor. He slowly rounds the corner, preparing for the journey past the nurses' desk, but he's brought up short by the sight of Missouri.

She leaning against the nurses' station and asking for directions. Dean takes the opportunity to move swiftly by. He's halfway there when a man in a suit comes out of Sam's room, and Dean darts to the side, head ducked down. He's face to face with a whiteboard with names and numbers written clearly across. He picks up the green pen at its base and fiddles with it between his fingers.

It's hot under the surgical mask, his breaths huffing in and out frantically.

"Help!"

Dean winces, shoulders rising.  _Shit._ He's done for. The man in the suit runs towards him…

… he barrels right past him.

Dean's shoulders drop and he glances to the other end of the hall where Missouri is waving her hands frantically at the suited man, pointing him towards the elevator.

Dean doesn't wait around to see what happens, he hurries to his brother.

* * *

It's weird, to see your own face outside of a mirror. Sam can't stop staring.

Dean is breathless, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. He pulls the mask from his face and wipes the back of his hand across his sweaty brow.

"Dude, hop in," he says, as if returning to your body is as easy as putting shoes on. Sam closes the gap between himself and the Sam in front of him. He tilts his head, wondering if that's  _really_ how he looks. It looks like him, but not in the way he's familiar with. He looks skinny, for one thing, but maybe that's how he's always looked.

Dean leans over and turns Sam's head to face him, his hand hovers in anticipation, waiting for Sam to open his eyes.

"Come on," he urges, eyes desperate.

Sam reaches out, the skin of his real, solid arm is only inches away. He can feel a warmth blossoming inside of himself where there's been nothing for days. This feels right.

"What are you doing in here?" a voice snaps from the doorway. There's a nurse blocking the doorway. She looks annoyed for a moment, but soon her eyes grow comically wide as she takes in Dean, and there's no doubt she knows exactly who he is. She begins to back away, intent on making a run for it, but Dean's quicker.

He draws his gun from where it was hidden in the back of his pants and aims it at her head.

"Don't move," he warns, and Sam's startled by just how frightening he is. "Don't make a sound."

She freezes on the spot, suddenly draining to an alarming shade of white as she lifts her hands in the air.

"Jesus, Dean," Sam exclaims.

"Come on, Sammy. Get in there and wake up," Dean says, not taking his eyes off her. He uses his free hand to wave her closer and orders, "Take out the IVs. All of it."

"Please," she whispers, but Dean doesn't budge. His face is stone cold.

The barrel of the gun follows her across the room to the bed. She's trembling badly, eyes watering as she mutters a prayer under her breath. Poor woman, Sam thinks. Dean would never harm a hair on her head, but looking at him right now even Sam is intimidated.

Sam shakes himself, forcing his mind to focus. He leans closer to his body again, just as the nurse eases the needle from the crook of his arm with a shaking hand, causing a small tear in the skin and a trickle of blood.

In a blink, the room is empty, suddenly dimming like someone turned the lights off. Sam shivers at a sudden cold, the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

He turns around, knowing what he'll find before he even sees it. There's a shadow in the doorway and it's looking right at him with its eyeless face.

He knows it and it knows him.

 

 

It lunges, the room darkening the closer it gets, and Sam only just manages to dart away in time. He feels a pressure at his back, a pain that runs all the way down him. It doesn't grab a hold of him, but it sends him skidding into the corner. Sam tries to scramble onto his feet, the creature looms closer.

He doesn't have time to think. He scuttles backwards, through the wall and into the next room. He doesn't look back, he runs.

* * *

The nurse takes her sweet time unplugging Sam. If Dean had time to be patient, he might feel bad for making her cry, but he can't help his patience thinning. He keeps stealing glances towards the doorway in case someone comes looking. It's only a matter of time before the fed comes back.

More worryingly, Sam hasn't woken up. Dean whispers for him to hurry up a couple of times, which only sends the poor nurse into more quiet sobs.

With a trembling hand, the nurse removes the clip from Sam's index finger and discards it on the mattress. Catheters and tubes lie abandoned on the linoleum floor, along with a mess of blood and other fluids Dean doesn't want to think about. She steps back with raised hands, immediately cowering against the wall as Dean approaches. She throws her arms over her head protectively and lets loose a gulping sob.

"Quiet!" Dean hisses, eyes darting back to the door. They're still clear, for now.

The nurse clamps her mouth shut, eyes flooded with tears. Dean keeps his gun still trained on her and leans over to rummage one-handed through the cabinets. He finds a roll of gauze and tape, then promptly stuffs the bandages into her mouth and tapes her wrists to the bed rail.

He tries to ignore the twinge of guilt he feels at the sound of her sobbing, but he can't. "Thanks," is all he can offer.

The second he replaces his gun back into the drawstring of his scrubs, she lets out a muffled sigh of relief around her gag. As he hoists Sam up by the armpits, he thinks of how much worse he's made his reputation as a serial killer. In his arms, Sam flops forward, unclean hair drooping over his face. With grunt, Dean hauls his brother over his shoulder.

"Jesus, how much do you weigh, Sammy?" Dean whispers, voice strained under the weight.

Without looking back, he moves as quick as he can towards the door. He peers over Sam's blanket-covered ass down each end the hallway. The nurses are still sitting unaware at the station down the hall. The stairway he entered from is beyond them, by the elevators. There's no way he'll make it past them unseen.

He's just going to have to make a run for it.

He takes a deep breath and rushes out, darting for the other end of the hall. He hears the gasps of the nurses as he passes, but none of them get up to stop them. He can hear the shrieking frantically into the phone as he knocks the door to the stairwell open.

His knees are beginning to shake under the strain of Sam's weight, but he presses onward, taking the stairs down half the speed he came up them. Sam's feet dangle and hit the wall a few times, his arms swinging and whacking against Dean's back.

He's passes a sign that reads  _Floor 3._ He feels relieved for about half a second before turning the corner, only to come face to face with the same fed from earlier. His hands are steady as he aims his gun at Dean.

"Put him down and step away," the man orders, expression stony.

"Let's not do anything stupid," Dean replies, eyes darting around for something, anything, that might help him. There's nothing except for his gun, which he can't reach.

The man sneers, slowly ascending the steps towards him. "I know who you are," he says. "I know what you've done. You're the worst kind of scum on this earth."

"Don't believe everything you hear," Dean says, forcing calm into his voice. He grips Sam tighter as he begins to slip on his shoulder. His gun is behind his back where he can't reach.

"I said, put him down!" the man shouts. "Backup's on its way. No point in trying to wriggle out of this one."

Dean lowers Sam to the floor slowly, feet hitting the concrete first, ankles turning in uselessly. He's a dead weight as Dean lays him down as gently as he can. Standing up straight, he raises his hands.

The fed steps closer. "Now turn around, hands behind your back."

There's a gun pointed his chest, it would be reckless to try anything now. I've never been sensible before, Dean thinks, I'm not starting now.

Dean moves as if to oblige, turning to the side, but the moment the officer is close enough he whips out his hand and swipes the gun to the side. A shot goes off that leaves his ears ringing. He wants to squeeze his eyes shut and clamp his hands over his head, but he can't stop moving. He grabs the fed by the shoulders and slams him roughly into the wall, knocking him out with a hard hit of his fist while he's stunned.

Gasping in pain, Dean presses a hand to his ear, he can barely hear a thing, head full of shrill ringing.

Quick as he can, he hauls Sam back up over his shoulder and, despite the pain and exhaustion that weighs him down, he carries on downwards as quick as he can. Everyone in the hospital would have heard the gunshot.

The long corridor he entered the hospital through is empty, the slow sprint he manages towards the door feels endless, and can finally breathe once he gets outside. Bobby's car is running where he left it. Dean sprints the last few steps, muscles pulling from the strain. Bobby hops out of the car to open the door to the back seat. Together, they push Sam's limp body into the back seat as quickly and gently as they can. Sam's legs take up the entire footwell, his head lolls against the window.

Bobby presses his foot to the gas before Dean's finished closing the door behind him and they go hurtling away down the road.

"Anyone following?" Bobby asks.

Dean cranes his neck to look out the rear window. He can hear sirens approaching, but there's no sign of anyone on their tail yet. Relieved, he shakes his head.

Bobby's eyes find Sam's body in the back seat and he frowns. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," Dean says, pulling back Sam's eyelid to find nothing but white. "He didn't wake up."

* * *

Sam hears an echo of a gunshot, but he keeps running.

He risks a look over his shoulder to find the shadow has slowed. He stops and watches him slow his pace. The stark hospital hallway flickers, light flooding the dim emptiness. Suddenly, he's surrounded by people. The other end of the hall is deserted, the creature is gone.

The second Sam makes it out of the building and into the parking lot, he stops. People are crowding around the parking lot as police cruisers pull up in front of the hospital. No one so much as glances at Sam. They stare from the side-lines as police go hurrying by into the hospital.

He sprints around to the back of the building. Bobby's car is gone, that means Dean got out. Sam closes his eyes, head falling back as he laughs with relief. He should start the long trek to their safehouse, but there's somewhere he needs to be first.

He begins walking to the Finchs' house.

The sun is still sitting high and bright in the sky by the time he gets there. He can hear the chirp of crickets and the whistle of birds in the trees. It's a beautiful day, but the Finchs' house is quiet, the neglected garden turning brown. In the back yard, Sam finds Lucy sitting on her swing set, looking like she never left at all. She frowns as he approaches.

"You didn't forget again, did you?" she asks.

Sam smiles and shakes his head. "No, I didn't forget this time. It was close, but I got away. Has that thing bothered you at all?"

"Not since it got me," Lucy replies, kicking her dirty feet. "I think it just likes sleeping people."

Sam crosses the lawn until he's right in front of her and he watches her swing her dangling legs back and forth. "Do you remember where you were when the monster got you?" he asks.

Lucy scrunches her face up like she's thinking very hard. "I was in my bed and… it was really late. I think I had a nightmare – I used to get lots of nightmares – but this time the monster was there. I was so scared that I started running. I ran all the way out the house and through the gate. There was water and I didn't know how to get out."

She points to where the gate behind the swing set. "I think it got me somewhere over there," she says.

"I'll be right back," Sam says. "Stay here, okay?"

She nods and watches Sam walk over to the fence. The gate is tall, but there's no lock on it, if he had a solid hand he knows it wouldn't take much for him to push it open. He steps through the wooden slats to find trees in front of the bayou. The murky brown water glistens under the bright sunshine, old trees reach out from its depths, a bridge crosses its width about a half mile away.

Sam crouches at the edge and peers into the water. It's too murky to see anything beyond the surface and the pond-skaters that slide across it. He knows, with a sinking heart, that Lucy is somewhere beneath the depths.

He returns to her and her hopeful little face. He's not sure what to say to her, Dean's usually much better with kids than he is. Sam crouches down so they're level and puts on his kindest smile.

"I'm going to help you move to a better place," he promises. "But I have to go away first. I probably won't see you again, but you won't be stuck here anymore."

"You're going to wake up?" she asks.

"Yeah, I need to wake up so I can help you go to somewhere better."

She flings her arms around him again, and even though he can feel the chill of her he can feel himself warming inside. He tries to hug back, but she's even less solid than he is.

"I'm sorry," he says.

Lucy lets go of him and gives him a funny look. "What're you sorry for, silly?"

Sam wishes he could explain. He wishes he could tell her about his mother and Jessica and all the people who died because of him, and he wishes he could tell her about Steve Wandell and all the people who've been hurt because someone used him to hurt them, he wishes he could tell her about the people he knows he'll hurt one day, because it's in him to hurt people.

This is on him, and he can never make it up to her.

"I'm just sorry," he says. "This is goodbye."

"Bye, Sam," she replies with a wave. Sam turns and walks away, determined not to look back because he knows it'll break him.

He walks for a long time, all the way out of town where the houses are old and the sun it intensely hot on the pavement. He glances down at his socked feet as he walks and he doesn't feel a thing. The further he goes, the less houses there are, the darker the sky becomes. Out in the countryside, with the vast open fields and the long stretches of roads, Sam is completely alone.

The sky turns a dramatic pink once the sun hits the horizon, and Sam can hear the screech of mating foxes somewhere in the distance. It takes longer than it should, but he's navigating his way to somewhere he's never been in the dark.

He's flooded with relief the second he spots an old road sign up ahead. It's peeling, more than one poster peeking out from the one on top. There dirt tracks running behind into the trees, a road that would be invisible unless you were looking. Bobby's directions were simple: four miles eastwards out of town, stop at the twelfth sign and follow the tracks.

The cabin at the end of the road is small, rickety enough that Sam worries a stiff wind might knock it over. Bobby's car is parked outside, a soft light fills the windows.

Sam carries on with the last of his trek, but something has the hairs rising on the back of his neck.

He turns around. There's a shadowy figure a few meters behind him, lit only by the last of the sun before it dips below the sunrise for the night. Sam runs towards the cabin, skidding through the door. He only has time to register Dean in the corner of the room, and his own body laid out on a mattress beside him.

Sam throws himself towards the mattress, hands reaching out and grasping his own lax face. The second he makes contact with his skin, he feels himself slip away, just like falling asleep.

* * *

The hands on Dean's watch tick by slowly. It's been hours, and Sam still hasn't woken up. He feels riddled with worry, like his insides are filled with ants. His leg bounces under his hand impatiently, the floorboard beneath him creaks. Across the room, Bobby heats up something out of a tin over the rusty cooker, while Missouri sits quietly at the table.

For the fifth or sixth time, Dean leans over to pull back Sam's eyelid. Still wide, still creepy as hell.

"Where is he?" he asks. "Do you – do you think he's okay?"

"All we can do is wait," Bobby says without turning around. The room smells like chili, Dean watches him stir the pot with a spoon, around and around.

Missouri, meanwhile, is quiet. That's what worries Dean the most. He gets to his feet, back still aching from carrying Sam down six flights of stairs, and stretches his arms upwards.

"I'm going to get some air," he mutters, but he only manages to take one step before something latches onto his leg.

He looks down to find his brother's tired eyes blinking at him.

"Dean?" Sam says, voice cracking from disuse.

Dean grins, dropping down to his knees as he yanks Sam up into his arms. Sam is still limp, barely managing to pat Dean's back. Dean just squeezes him tighter.

"Hey, Sammy," he says. "You took your time."

* * *

Lucy Finch is buried on a Wednesday. It rains.

Sam and Dean watch from the impala as the tiny white coffin is lowered into the ground, closely huddled by mourners dressed in black. In the backseat there's a newspaper, the picture of a little girl printed on the front under a bold headline.  _Missing child found in bayou following anonymous tip!_

Sam can feel Dean's eyes on him, can feel the concern rolling off him.

"You okay?" he asks.

"I'm fine," Sam lies.

Dean lets out a breath, readjusting his hands on the steering wheel. "There was nothing you could have done," he says. "But you got her back to her family, that's what matters."

"She's still dead," Sam mutters against the passenger window. "That things still out there."

"Not because of you," Dean says. "And there's nothing we can do about that thing, not without risking you going back there."

Sam wishes he could agree, but his head is filled with  _what if?_  What if he'd figured out dreamwalking earlier? What if he'd gotten there sooner? What if he'd figured out a way to kill it? Sure, Lucy was dead before they even arrived in town, but Sam can't help feeling responsible in some way. He doesn't tell Dean this, he doesn't need to worry his brother any more than he already does. Dean's started freaking out every time Sam goes to sleep, shaking him awake every few hours just to be sure he's still in there.

Instead, Sam says, "You're right. Let's go."

 


End file.
